Have mercy on Palestine, exorcise Iran-Israel spell

02/10/2016

Ahmed Al-Jarallah – Editor-in-Chief, the Arab Times

ARABS are still going around an empty circle with regard to the Palestinian cause. They want peace with Israel by presenting initiatives on one hand, but on the other hand, they criticize any dialogue or communication with it.

This is the reality we will keep on reiterating after agitating the issue in relation to the participation of delegations from four Arab countries in the funeral of Shimon Peres, Israel’s politician who died recently.

As usual, the accusations have reached the extent of describing others as traitors, among other accusations that we have been hearing since 1947. Those hurling such accusations were the first to abandon Palestinians, whether in confrontation or, at least, in the struggle for unification of Palestinian factions under the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) whose leaders realized recently that there is no other option to return to their country except through the path of peace.

Paradoxically, the Zionist project did not come out of the blue as it started in the first Zionist congress in 1897 in Basel, where Zionist leader Theodor Herzl made an announcement about the Jewish state’s scheme which the Zionist movement have been striving to implement for 50 years to follow Herzl’s announcement.

Arabs at the time chose the seats of spectators. In fact, they helped enhance the existence of Jews by rejecting the United Nations (UN) resolutions on the partition of Palestine in 1947, when the wind of international politics did not favor the Arab’s interests.

Furthermore, the major powers then decided to solve the European Jews problem at the expense of Arabs. They fortified this move in a confrontation with what was known as ‘sea of Arab hatred’ surrounded by the Jewish island.

Throughout the past seven decades, Arabs have not presented anything beneficial to Palestine apart from phrases and slogans. Those who strived to push Israel to confront the reality of the issue, such as President Anwar Al-Sadat, were accused of being treacherous and submissive.

Now after 35 years of the assassination of the hero of peace and war – Anwar Al-Saddat — by the hands of extremists with Arabs being ironed by their fire continuously, it has become apparent that the man realized nothing can be done to stop the Zionist expansionism scheme or destroy Zionism except through peace, by limiting the Jewish state inside recognized borders.

Even the Camp David agreement, which the Palestinian factions rejected at the time, set pillars for the current Palestinian authority and the same factions are trying to join the authority.

As usual, Arabs left all their problems that caused their historic slackness towards taking a stance on an agenda which was considered their central agenda in the past. It has become in reality the Palestine-Israel agenda and now they are back to their earlier state of hurling accusations. This is exactly what happened with Habib Bourguiba in 1965 when he called for early reconciliation with “Israel and no Arab country intends to fight it”.

At the time, accusations similar to those being hurled at present, were raised. He was accused of treachery, shame and weakness, among other terminologies. However, the advocate in the current historic moment is part of another conspiracy, which is Iran.

The current political reality requires everyone to deal with this issue with the mentality of Al-Saddat. If it were not for his assassination, the Palestinians would have saved themselves from a lot of destructions and killings due to internal divisions and kiosks of resistance slogans which are about 20 fronts and organizations, whereas the countries that participated in Shimon Peres’ funeral have realized the correctness in his politics.

Today, Arabs are sinking in their problems which are part of Israel’s scheme whose end result is imposing the Jewish State on them and destroying their countries. All these could have been avoided if the Arabs went for early reconciliation.

Given that the mentality of insulting Israel while they are assaulting us continues to govern Arabs, they are yet to realize the distribution of roles between Tehran and Tel-Aviv which reached the extent of undermining their national security through their struggle to throw Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the remaining countries into the trap of internal conflict.

Since Egypt and Saudi Arabia did not fall in that trap, members of Tehran’s gang are attempting, through their mouthpieces whom we almost affirm are not real Arabs, to cause divisions among the people and governments of those countries. This is part of the Israel-Iran game in the region, but these nations have realized ‘the hidden agenda’ and they will never fall into the trap.

All that remains is to thank Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and the Palestinian National Authority which are dealing with this issue realistically, something that drives out Iran-Israel’s spell.

To those who continue to say, “We will be the last to normalize relations with Israel,” and such kind of classical phrases: Save yourself the trouble. “There is no need to fuss over an issue whose goodness had already been disposed.”